Halloween Spirit: Mandy(2018) with Scott Weinberg

Kicking off Aughts-tober, a miniseries within a miniseries, Brian and Weinberg battle cults, warlocks, and crazy evil bikers alongside Nic Cage in Mandy! 


Oh, and as a special treat, we have summoned the powers of dark magic to bend the fabric of time and cause a collision of today's episode with a sonic relic of the distant past. 


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's a mean junk and watching them, you gonna come
out and stop me?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
All right? This is Dick Miller.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
If you're listening to junk Food Cinema, who are these guys?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
When I die? Bury me deep, Lay two speakers at
my feet, wrap some headphones round my head so I
can listen to junk food Cinema brought to you by Dueling, Chainsaws,
dot com, dot com, dot Strange and eternal. This is,
of course, the weekly Culton Exploitation filmcast. So good it

(01:08):
just has to be fattening, and it just has to
remember the words of the fucking intro. I am your host,
Brian Salisbury, and uh Cargill is not here this week
because he is off. I don't know something about leather
masks and motorcycles. I don't know if he's talking about
D and D or S and M. But he's not here.
He is now out terrorizing the Shadow Mountain. In his place,
we have the Scheddar Goblin of JFC, my dear friend,

(01:31):
mister Scott Weinberg.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
This is the first time I've ever reviewed a movie
based on a Barry Manlow song, so I.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Am ready to lay my love on the line for
this movie. One thousand percent, Oh Mandy.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
If you read the lyrics to Mandy, you'll realize that
Panos and his co writer Aaron Stewart On were definitely
inspired by that. No, I'm just joking.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
This is a glorious day under the primordial sky. While
we are still very much in the Halloween spirit, we're
also splintering off into October, a celebration of some of

(02:18):
our favorite horror movies of this first quarter century. And
we're kicking off this mini series within a mini series
with one of the best films of twenty eighteen period
the end, we are reaching into the dark embrace of
the fissure and retrieving from it the smooth, glowing gym,
a gaze into the serpent's eye that is dubbed Mandy.

(02:40):
A film that came and gave without taking.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
It came and didn't even break two million at the
box office, got it? This movie deserved better, deserve to
make more money. It really did. It is a monumental achievement.
Every time I watch I hate using these such old
but every time I see this movie, I see new
things and I like it more. And I liked it

(03:06):
a lot the first time.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
And owing to that Scott, because I agree with you
one thousand percent in pursuant to that, we're gonna do
something crazy with this episode, because Mandy, as you know,
and the character that Nick Cage plays in this movie,
are not afraid to test the boundaries of sanity. And
with this particular episode, we're gonna do the same thing.
You and I are going to talk about Mandy, and
then we're gonna use the dark warlock powers of my

(03:29):
editing to actually collide this episode like a dying planet
falling into its own moon, into the now unlocked patron
minisode we did on this movie back in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Record scratch.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
This is a double sized fucking episode on Mandy. You're
gonna hear me and Scott talk about it in the
present and then me and Cargill talk about it in
the past.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
That's what we call the best of both.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Worlds, absolutely the best of the old worlds, the old
world god that definitely feel like they were alive and
well in this film, directed by Panos Cosmatos, the son
of the legendary George Pacas Mottos, who's made you know,
we could probably cover his entire catalog on junk food Cinema.
I think we came the Stone covered Rambo two.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Now what am I missing? I mean? Those are his
two big Viathan Coke, Oh yeah, of course, Leviathan, the Richard.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Kranner Epic and Cobra Cobra of course. Yeah, all movies
that we have covered on this particular pod.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
I think he did Cassandra Crossing.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
I believe that is correct, George P. Cassandra Crossing, Yes.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yep, it is. Let's see who else? What did we
miss here? He didn't have a huge filmography. He did
seventy one, he did a film called Sin seventy three,
a film called Massacre in Rome seventy six, Cassandra Crossing
which I like. Seventy nine, Oh, escaped to Athena with
Roger Moore. That one's good that Roger Moore. Yeah, Oh
what a cast Roger Moore, Tally Savalla's, Dave Niven, Stephanie Powers, Claudia, Cardinal,

(05:03):
Richard Rowntree, Elliott Gould, and Sonny fucking Bono.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
What the fuck dude?

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Skip to Atheno. In nineteen eighty three he gave us
a killer rat movie.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Of unknown origin, correct.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
Not Deadly Eyes, which I believe was Robert Klaus So
good call Rambo is also.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
A great Eric Carnes song if I remember correctly.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Eighty six Cobra, eighty nine Leviathan, ninety three, Tombstone, and
his final film, unfortunately was Linda Hamilton, Donald Sutherland and
Charlie Sheen in Shadow Conspiracy.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
George B's Cosmatos left this world far too young. He
was sixty four years old, and that actually plays directly
into our discussion of Mandy, because Panos channeled a lot
of his grief about losing both of his parents into
this film, a movie that's very much about somebody who
grief drives mad. So that's that's something that certainly needs

(05:58):
to be set.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Up top yep. And he got his start in twenty
ten with a very good film called Beyond the Black Rainbow,
and this is even better. And he also directed in
twenty two an episode of Gamba del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.
But in a perfect world, this guy has, you know,
ten more films ahead of him. I would love to
see more from Panos.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
He actually funded Beyond the Black Rainbow primarily with royalties
from Tombstone, so his father's royalties from Tombstone allowed him
to make Beyond the Black Rainbow, which, very much like Mandy,
was a festival darling. Like that movie made the festival circuit, don't.
I can't even tell you how many festivals Beyond the
Black Rainbow played, And the same is true of Mandy.
Mandy was a huge veestival.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
I'm still stunned that it didn't do a little bit better.
RLJ released it in the States in September of twenty eighteen,
and again it cost about six and it made a
million and a half. Come on, man, I could sell
this movie better than that.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Well, you're missing the big thing here, Scott, which is
that RJL or are what is RJ? RLJ? They released
this on only two hundred and fifty theaters and only
did nighttime screenings, like to preserve the integrity of the
spookiness of the movie or the the eeriness of the movie,
they only showed. They only did nighttime screenings on two

(07:16):
hundred and fifty screens, and they only intended to do
that for the month of September because then the movie
was gonna hit VOD. So this movie did much better
on VOD. But it really wasn't given a proper theatrical release.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Oh okay, fair enough, and it was, Yeah, it was
like a novelty release. They shouldn't have done that. They
should have just threw it into theaters and let the
great critics rieve. But you know, I also said that
about the Raid, and we saw what happened there. It
made about the same I also, you know, let's throw
some love to somebody who did not live to see
the film released. And he did an amazing job on

(07:50):
the score, an Icelandic composer named Johann Johansson, who unfortunately
died of a drug overdose in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
His score in this movie is absolutely phenomenal. I would
go so far as to call it strange and eternal
because it creates that that soundscape that just haunts you

(08:21):
throughout the whole movie. It's just so good, like it's
the kind of thing that I would absolutely own, just
to put on in the background of a normal day.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
It is a beautiful score. He also did of the
films I know, he did Prisoners, The Theory of Everything,
Sacario Arrival, which is an amazing score. And we would
have gotten a lot more great music if he, unfortunately
hadn't passed and it's it's it's inestimable what his score
brings to this movie, and.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
It's it should be said that this movie was in
fact gift wrapped for somebody like me. Not only am
I huge Nicholas Cage fan. Not only am I am
I a big fan of dream like almost like Italian
influenced type horror films. Not only am I huge fan
of revenge movies. But this movie was produced by both
x y Z Films and Spectrovision, which means Todd Brown
and Elijah Wood were both involved with this movie. Getting

(09:13):
into my eyeballs.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
Yeah, a lot of good people behind the scenes in
this one, a lot of good people. Josh Waller also
and Daniel and Loe and Nate Bullett and a lot
of the x y Z guys. I know them. They great,
really good people. And also we cannot sell short Andrea Riseboro,
who plays the titular Mandy. She is a force of
nature in this movie. She is wonderful. Sometimes she's calm,

(09:37):
She's mostly calm and quiet throughout, but she is the
heart and soul of the movie. With If you don't
buy the relationship between her and Cage, the movie gets
kind of would probably get kind of tiresome, but you
love her from five minutes in. You love the two
of them together, and when he desperately has to try

(09:57):
and get her back, you're right there next to him, like, yes, go,
I'm with you, I'm with you.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
She is so strange and yet striking looking. There's something
ethereal and otherworldly about her. The only actress I can
compare her to in that way is somebody like Shelley Duvall,
where it's just like there's something about her that like,
you're gone too, and yet she is so unconventional.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
I could see that. Yeah, it's just an earthy, earthy
kind of like hard. Yeah, it's hard to Ethereal is
the word, you know. There's also some great character actors.
The head of the cult who kidnaps her is Linus Roach.
His performance is brave and amazing. There's the great Bill Duke,

(10:43):
the great Richard Brake.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Oh yeah, now I want to I want to talk
about each one of those things fortule.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Okay, yeah, gosh, sorry, I'm not glossing over.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
I just wanted to.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. The other reason I say
this movie was gift wrap for me and I will
you'll hear more about this when we time travel back
to twenty eighteen. But I saw this movie alone on
my birthday because it was one of those things the
Alima was doing where if you were a member, like
you got to a free movie ticket on your birthday,
and I just had a free evening on that day
and I went and saw this movie and it completely

(11:11):
blew me out the back of the theater, Like I
was sitting front row in a recliner and I've just
felt the movie wash over me. It was so good.
And I feel like started this Nicholas Cage renaissance. I
feel like every couple of years beget a Nicholas Cage renaissance.
But I like this was a good point.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
He does like a handful of B movies, some good,
some not good, and he's always good, but every couple
of years he's oh, pig, holy crap, you know, and
people can go crazy over that or dream scenario or
you color out of space even and this was definitely one.
This is a real highlight, and it's great ammunition for
anybody who's like, oh, Nicholas Cage, you just make so

(11:49):
many movies. I can't keep up, and they're all crap,
and it's like, no, no, they're not. As somebody who
has seen literally every film he's ever made, the vast
majority are interesting film. There are a few here and
there that are just you know, misfires. It happens. But
even when it's not a great film, Cage is always

(12:09):
worth watching. Always.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
He got into a run in the late twenty tens
of the guy needed to pay bills, and he'll be
the first to tell you he took a lot of
projects to pay some bills and get out of some debts.
And yeah, there's some worth watching, and there's a lot
of crap in there.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
I think it flipped that there's a lot of them
that are worth watching and a few that are left behind.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
I mean, crap, that's fair. But in twenty eighteen, not
only does Mandy come out, but he's also voicing spider
Man Noir into the Spider Verse.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
And he's he's got that Crud's money and he's.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Got that six Sick Cruds money.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Bro Hey, I watched The Cruds only because he's in it,
and they're both pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
And good for him because he turned down famously, well
I say famously. I don't even know if it's true
allegedly he turned down Trek, which doesn't make any says
because the story I've always heard is that Shrek was
written for Chris Farley, and Chris Farley passed away, then
Mike Myers just kind of came in and voiced the animations.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
That I've never heard that about Shrek, but I mean,
I doubt he would have turned that down.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
And you know, the story goes that that's the reason
why he jumped onto cruides because he felt like he'd
made a mistake not doing it.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Oh okay, yeah, maybe he had to choose it between
that and something else, you know, simple as that. But
he's a smart guy. He had to know that Trek
was going to be somewhat of a hit, so you
do it.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
But but his career is like a tide, you know
what I mean. Like like he comes in like twenty eighteen,
felt like Nicholas Cage's back, baby, and then it kind
of ebbs out again. He does some interesting stuff, but
a lot of you know, direct to VOD stuff that
a lot of people didn't really latch onto. And then
twenty twenty one he comes out with Willie's Wonderland and
Pig and it's like, you got a little something for

(13:49):
the midnight crowd, you got a little something for the
art crowd in one year, both of which are popular,
and then the very next year he does the unbearable
weight of massive talent. Yeah, like he keeps minding us
how fucking good he is.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
His good Let me put it this way. His good
stuff is so good that it makes sifting through a
few turkeys perfectly fine.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
One thousand percent. I will watch anything with Nicholas Cage
in it, because if nothing else, I know, Nicholas Cage
is gonna be interesting in it.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
He's got a new one coming out next month called
The Carpenter's Son.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, that's what it's about. It's a horror film, isn't
it a horror film about Jesus? Yeah, I'm so in dude.
And then just too, what was it last year he
did long legs and completely melted brains too.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
That was yeah, yeah, twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
It will never not be Nicholas Cage's moment because whenever
he has the opportunity, he will make it his moment.
And I love that about him.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah, I love the guy. I love the guy. I
look forward to doing his new movies like anything else.
In recent years he's done decent ones, like The Retirement Plan.
I said, dream Scenario. I thought it was funny. In Renfield,
he did a couple of westerns, one called Butcher's Crossing
and the other called The Old Way, both perfectly entertaining.

(15:02):
In twenty four he did Long Legs, The Surfer, and Arcadian,
all three I liked and uh oh, and this year
he had a virtually unwatchable western called gun Slingers. From
being totally honest, it's really bad. Uh but yeah, he's
He's also playing John Madden in a film coming out
called Madden Amazing.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Oh my god, John Madden, are you crazy? Here's a
guy when you ask him too, he plays John Madden.
I mean Christian Bale as Al Davis.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Fuck.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yes, he's in that. Oh my god. Yes, Oh, let's go.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
Directed by David o' russell. I believe it's already in
the can as they say in the film biz. Uh so, yeah,
I'm dying to see that one. It's also got John Mulaney,
Shane Gillis, Catherine Hahn, and Sienna Miller. So bring it on.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Does it say who John Mullaney is playing?

Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, it does.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Trim Hawkins, Okay, Olivia, just like, yep, look it up
for yourself, asshole.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
Yeah, I don't even know who Shane Gillis is playing.
He wasn't on there last time I looked at this page.
But I believe it's an Amazon. It'll be on Amazon
MGM Amazon. Yeah, Yeah, looks like it. Let's Go depicts
the life of football legend John Madden and his involvement
in development of the Madden NFL video game series. So
it's like a late career John Madden. It's not like

(16:27):
you know, from his childhood. I can't wait to see
this thing.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
I'll be there opening day. Hell yeah, just win baby.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
Opening Day on your couch watching Amazon.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Well, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
After these messages, we'll be right back. The macaroni and cheese.
Who chittter God?

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Where cheter Goblin?

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Did you do all the Lafaronian cheese?

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Nothing's better than Cheddar.

Speaker 5 (17:00):
Goblrong Cheddar Goblin by Divein has sixty percent more cheese

(17:24):
than the next leading brand. Kids and goblins agree, Cheddar
Goblin tastes the best. That's why Cheddar Goblin was rated
number one three years in a row. Cheddar Goblin by Devain.
It's Goblin good.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
This movie, for those who haven't seen it, takes place
in the Shadow Mountains nineteen eighty three. Now, the actual
Shadow Mountains are in the Mojave Desert in California, but
as you can tell by the lush greenness, this is
not shot in the desert. It was shot in Belgium,
which doubles for California, the California Wilderness. Honestly, though, I've
always felt this is a horror movie that takes place

(18:05):
on the side of a van.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
It is.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
It's one of the I mean, I wish I knew
who was the first person to come up with that,
but it was. This movie looks like it was inspired
by a mural on a large nineteen seventy nine Volkswagen van. Yeah,
it's Inside the War an album cover from a band
you've never heard of. But damn is that album cover good?

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Exactly? It's inside the World's painted on heavy metal vans
one thousand percent and the brief animated interstitials in this
film really aid in that sort of motif.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yeah, it really is meant to feel like a dream world,
both a night well, both dream and nightmare. But yeah,
it is not that interested in a linear, literal plot,
although it is, you know, easy to follow, but it
also has these visual divergences that just I mean, it's
two hours long, and you wish it was an hour longer.

(18:53):
A movie like this should normally be about one hundred
minutes at most, given the plot. You know, we know
this plot, and if it goes over one hundred minutes,
you're often like, all right, I'll deal with the extra
footage just to get But this movie, I wish it
was three hours long.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
So Nicholas Cage is playing Red Miller, a lumberjack out
here just taking helicopters out to the next place to
use a chainsaw toed knockdown trees, the most manly man
that maybe Nicholas Cage has ever played. He lives with
his girlfriend, Mandy, who is an author and an artist
with an abusive childhood. They talk at length about that

(19:33):
she also works at a gas station as a cashier
by day, and then at night she draws all this
amazing fantasy art and Red loves heavy metal and he
loves fantasy. He loves all the artwork she does. The
two of them together are so good, and it's one
of those things you have to establish in a revenge film,
Like a revenge film boilerplate, one of the things on
that boilerplate is that you have to establish the loving

(19:56):
relationship between the two lead characters. You know it's gonna
end track logically, someone is going to die and the
other person's going to get revenge. And I buy the
two of them as a couple.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
Oh, I mean, and you you also nailed it, because
like if I said, oh, it's a movie about Nicholas
Cage and his girlfriend wife is kidnapped and he has
to try and get her back, you'd be like, yeah,
I've seen that plot a thousand times. What makes this different?
And all I would say is watch the first fifteen

(20:27):
minutes and if you're not into it, turn it off.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
I mean, it's it's essentially a movie about how grief
and anguish can turn someone into a complete monster. Yep,
and we we are, you know, cathartically rooting on the
monster the entire time. And as much as I think
Nicholas Cage is perfect for this role, I do think
it's interesting that initially he was offered the role of
Linus mm hm, and he was just like, I don't

(20:53):
think that character is that interesting. I'm just not really
interested and kind of drifted away from the project for.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
Linus Roach Ash I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
I'm sorry. Yes, the character of Jeremiah, who ended up
being played by uh Linus Roach, who's so fucking good
in this.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
I mean, I don't know much about this actor. I've
seen him in a few things. I don't know him
very well, but damn is he good.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
He's Thomas Wayne and Batman Begins, which effectively means we
have two actors from Batman Begins. We have both Thomas
Wayne and the guy that killed Thomas Wayne in the
same movie.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
Wow. Yeah, look at that.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
The actor that played Joe Chill in Batman Begins is
also in this as one of the cult members. Because
that is sort of the inciting action of this movie,
is that Mandy catches the eye of this lascivious and
manipulative and psychopathic cult leader, Jeremiah sand.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
What I love is that it starts in a fairly
literal world, and the longer it goes, the more dream
like or nightmare like, the more surreal it gets. Like
when you start to like discover Jeremiah's like second and
third in command, These lunatics who seem to climb out
of the forest floor. They're just monstrous, and you're like,

(22:05):
you have to just keep up and be like, well,
I guess it's is it meant to be literal?

Speaker 2 (22:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
It's just beautiful.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
If you're watching a Panos because Modos movie for literal
storytelling that I hate to break it to you, but
you've come to the wrong place what we are watching
in this movie.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
They look like monsters, is what I'm saying. It look
like normal hitchmen in leather and spikes. They look like monsters.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
No, this is not death wish you know. This is
the beyond. Uh. And the thing about it is this
is a movie about grief, and we're watching one man
descend into his own personal hell after the death of
his true love. Like and again, Panos has said, this
is a movie about the loss of his parents, and
I think the villains, being religious fanatics that have wrong

(22:47):
the hero kind of serve as this stand in for
the anger that I think we all sometimes feel toward
you know, God or a higher being or whatever, like
fate or anything that's out of our control whenever people
we love are taken from us, especially if they're taken young,
they're taken unexpectedly, they're taken tragically. Yeah, there is that
anger toward you know, the uncontrollable force, like the the

(23:10):
justice of the universe feels out of balance when that happens.
And I think the fact that it's Nicholas Cage against
this you know, sort of culty but Judeo Christian based
cult is literally him, you know, working out a lot
of the anger that he has toward God for taking parents.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
We we when we're grieving, cannot get revenge. But in
this movie, watching him kind of climb this escalating ladder
of revenge against demonic forces and what feels like superhuman
monsters is just delightful in a dark, gruesome way. It's

(23:48):
so enjoyable.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
I don't think it's always effective when a filmmaker uses
a film to as therapy to try to work out
their own shit. It doesn't always work, but this does
for me because us not only is is Panels working
on his grief, Nicholas Cage. The reason he decided to
come back to this project and the reason that he

(24:09):
convinced Panels that he was perfect to play Red, is
that he had just gone through a sudden and painful divorce.
He was served with papers completely out of the blue
right before shooting began, so he uses that to inform
his performance in this movie, which is again, even in
the pantheon of completely unhinged, completely undeniably watchable, completely undeniably

(24:32):
engrossing Nicholas Cage performances, this is still top shelf.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, oh no.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
We also it would be really silly and ignorant to
go through this entire podcast and not throw some flowers
at cinematographer Benjamin Loeb, who does an amazing job.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
He The color palette of this film is gorgeous and
intense yep like, it almost feels like the colors in
the movie are out to hurt you. Like, that's that
level of intensity with this palette, And it does give
the setting a dreamy, other worldly quality, and I would happily.
The thing is that Ben makes a standard woodland road,

(25:12):
just a roade through the woods in California, Belgium. It's
supposed to be California.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
Like something that of a horrible fairy tale, look like
a breathing hell mouth like this whole movie, especially after
Mandy is killed, feels like it's set at the Gates
of Hell. Yeah, no, that nails it, you really. I mean,
we to talk about, you know, van murals and album covers,
but that's what we're evoking, is that that seventies, late seventies,

(25:39):
early eighties kind of fear of the devil kind of mythology.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I would happily frame any frame of this movie and
hang it on my wall as art, and that, to
me is the measuring stick of truly inspired cinematography.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
I love this.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
I found this herd here on Wikipedia. It says that
Jos gave Lobe various films as inspiration. They were The Hitcher,
Days of Thunder, Revenge, The Costner Psycho, Three Fist of
the North Star, and Cobra.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
His dad's own movie. I love that that made the
cut in there as well. And that's I think Cobra,
with its smoky sort of those sequences where we see
the serial killer cults like are all like smoking and
weird like that probably lends the most to the visual
palette of this movie.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, And I'm sure Nicholas Cage used not only his divorce,
but that one time when he was living in Orange
County Welcome in the middle of the night there was
a naked man eating a fudgsickle in the front of
his bed. I'm sure he used that to inform his
performance as well.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
It's a scary, tragic, effective movie and a lot of
it just hinges on. Do you care that Nicholas Cage
character read gets his revenge or not? And when a
movie is like two hours long, by like ninety minutes,
you're almost like a lot of times revenge movies you're like, yeah,
I get it. You know, revenge is an empty cycle.

(27:08):
You want it, but it's not gonna get you anything.
It's not gonna make you feel any better.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
We've seen some really good revenge stories where it's like,
you know, and this is just like the primal animal
instinct of I'm gonna do it. I know it's probably
in the long run, is not going to do me
any good, but I'm doing it anyway because it feels right.
It feels like justice.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
I don't want to keep bringing everything back to this,
but it was probably the most one of the most
significant moments of my adult life. This is the first
time I'd watched this movie since losing my dad, and
there were so many moments of Nicholas Cage just.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
So I know, this is a phrase that we a
lot of people like to use when they talk about actors.
It is such a brave performance.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
There are so many scenes where he risks looking ridiculous,
where he's weeping in his tidy whities and guzzling a
bottle of bourbon, where you're like what, And it's so tragic,
it is so viscerally effective. And with another director, with
another cinematographer, with another actor, it would be silly, it

(28:13):
would be purple, it would not it wouldn't work. But
it's so tragically beautiful in this movie.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
The first time I saw it, I thought it was brave,
and I thought it was, you know, amazingly stunning and
something very captivating. No, you know, no judgment here, like
you know, screaming your tidy whities. But watching it this time,
I get it, dude, like you being mad at the
entire world and just feeling like you want to tear
everything down. And again he goes through the five stages

(28:41):
of cage grief, which are screaming, laughing, staring, dancing and
screaming and drinking and drinking like that, Like I get it.
I totally understand. Like the Headspace's character is in and
you know the fact that he goes on to take
down this this cults the children of the New Dawn
as there.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
And like you said, he's not you know, we know
what Nicholas Cage looks like. He's not the Rock.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
He was in the Rock, but he's not the Rock.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Yes, yeah, you buy him as a powerful, intense guy,
but as like an ass kicker who takes down an
entire cult. Not really, And this movie sells that. You
buy it. By the time, like you said, we're at
the end with a chainsaw battle, you buy it. He's
just you know, it doesn't matter if he's hulking or not.
He's insanely furious and you know that it is a

(29:31):
strength in and of its own, I suppose well.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
And it helps that we've had multiple decades worth of
Nicholas Cage bringing this exact energy to you know, scenes
of him doing taxes like we're fully aware that Nicholas
Cage can can occupy this Headspace and do it very well,
so there is no suspension of displace.

Speaker 6 (29:50):
Right.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
He's also such a smart filmmaker that is such a
smart actor that he knows like you deliver the mania
in small doses. Yeah, if he was just feral throughout
the entire movie, it would get really tiresome by hour,
by like forty five minutes. But he's sedate, he's calm,
he's upset, he's angry, he's devastated. And then there's a

(30:14):
couple of moments where he's just like white hot fury
and you're like, yeah, I buy it, And then he
calls you know, then he's a little more calm again,
like if you only not you, but if you only
go by you know, like Nicholas Cage memes, you would
think he's a maniac in every film, but it's usually
only two or three times in most films where he

(30:36):
kind of loses it and pulls back.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
And he's just brave as an actor. And I think
that's what his fans respond to, is that just I
am willing to risk looking foolish if a director gives
me a reason to be over the top.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
And the thing is as beautiful, as stunning, as dream like,
and you know, eye catching as this movie is, and
artistic as this movie is. At its core, it is
a standard revenge film, and one of the things you
need for a standard revenge film is a nasty or
a group of nasties that our hero is gonna have
to get that revenge on, and they have to be

(31:11):
nasty enough that we as an audience are going to
buy into the schottenfreud of watching these people get their
come up. Ince and the children of the New Dawn,
the Manson family of this movie are a thousand percent that.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
I mean, I don't have the names right in front
of me, but the costume designers and the makeup artists
specifically for the cult, Wow, what a great job they did.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
So incredible. I love the way that they just seem
to occupy these houses and drift from one completely on
fire setting to another. The Linus Roach again is in
a career best performance for him. He's so incredibly good
in this movie. At one point I did notice this,
He asks his second in command is a guy named
brother Swan for the horn of a braxis, which I

(31:58):
assume summons Jesse even I haven't verified this, but I'm
pretty sure that's what it does. That is Ned Denihy, yes,
blowing the horn and bringing him the horn of a praxis,
and then all of a sudden it's like, yeah, it
turns out I'm perfect for this new film by Panosh Gojmtts,
mostly because the fact that Panosh Gojmittos is the perfect

(32:19):
name to say with a vent dura.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
Actually, well, you know what's great about ned Dennehy. He
is an Irish actor who's been in a dozen things
you've seen, but he's completely unrecognizable in this movie exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, you're right. The makeup they are allowed to completely disappear.
The actor who plays Joe Chill and Batman Begins is
you know, also just really icky and and and sinewy
and just he's perfect. He's perfect.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
Richard Brake, the great Richard Brake, who has a kind
of an intense look and lends himself really well to
horror and action. But he can play anything. He could
play you know, the sweetest step dad you've ever seen.
But boy is he good at playing monsters.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, And they cross paths with Mandy and he sets
and Jeremiah sets his sights on her. Mandy says they
live near Crystal Lake, so apparently they have cult members
and Jason vorheses to deal with. What a terrible place.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
Oh yeah, you gotta, I mean, like, I just love
like simple references like that, Yeah, you gotta name the lake.
Why not Crystal Lake? You know that you're not guilding
the lily, you're not overdoing it. It's just oh, Crystal Lake.
You know, I'm sure there's a thousand Crystal lakes in America,
but you know it's a horror film.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
So and apologies. I just realized I haven't listened to
the minisode from twenty eighteen since we recorded it. So
if I'm repeating jokes, it just shows you how little
range I have, And I apologize, but I did not
listen to that episode. So apologies if you're hearing these
jokes again.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
Oh well, yeah, I mean I think you've heard me
rapture eyes over this movie just enough. Anybody out there
who has not seen this movie. I guarantee you the
vast majority of your listeners who are listening to this
episode have already seen Mandy.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
But yeah, but the.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Small percentage you haven't. Just stop listening before you get
to the cargil part and and watch the movie. You
will love it.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
The fucking Black Skulls, which is the motorcycle gimp gang
in this movie. Whatever I ate just before bed to
give me that specific flavor of Nightmare is a food
I will swear off forever, right.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
And it's just the more we talk about this movie,
the more I wish Panos had more films under his belt.
People give him money, give.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Him all of the money. That scene where Linus Roaches
is monologuing to Mandy, Yeah, and they subtly crossfade, overlay
Mandy's face in his.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
And it's a counterpoint to the earlier scene where her
and Cage talk for five or six minutes uninterrupted. And
it really is, you know, like they're like mirror mirror
opposites of each other. It's is that a phrase, mirror opposites.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Now one another?

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I again, if you know, if you
don't stop, I could talk about this movie for another hour.
I could.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
I could talk about Bill Duke for another hour, despite
the fact that he's only in four minutes of this movie.

Speaker 4 (35:07):
Is in one scene and Boyd, and he leaves an impact.
Oh that voice, the face, just the presence, just wonderful.
Bill Duke, so much.

Speaker 7 (35:19):
So, witching on.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Crazy Evil.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
One of the greatest character actors of all time. And
as we all know, in a revenge movie, you need
to tool an up scene, you need the scene of
the guy who's like, I'm gonna do this. I'm completely invested.
Here's the weapons I'm forging, including a battle axe.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
This I mean a lot of I mean he's basically
there to like go to the like bring the movie
to the next level, you know, elevating the intensity and
to deliver some really welcome exposition, and he's just effortless.
He's a me.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
This battle acts that Bill Duke says will cut through
bone like a fat kid through cake is such a
great line and when you actually see it forged it's
based on the logo for the metal band Celtic Frost.
It's so fucking cool. It's just it looks like a
guitar that someone from Anthrax would play. It's so odd.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
It really is an evidence of like there's that there's
something that comedians talk about where it's like a five
percenter where it's a great joke, but only five percent
of your audience is gonna get it. And there's some
stuff in this movie that only old school heavy metal
heads will get, but it will make them love this
movie even more.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
There are a couple of moments here where Nicholas Cage
delivers lines that are like I feel like if we
hadn't been exposed to the Nicholas Cage performance style for years,
and if it hadn't been in this movie, we might
have thought we're silly. But it actually keeps the movie
from ever being pretentious. When he tries to describe the
Black Skulls yep as and he just says, he loses

(36:47):
all train of thought and just goes crazy evil like,
it's just such a human moment where it's like, I
don't even have the fucking words right now. I'm not
eloquent right now.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
Right In most movies, the hero would have like a
mini monologue already planned to describe the villains, but he can't.
It's just adjectives, that's it.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Or like the line where he's facing the Black Skulls
in their encampment and he keeps yelling, you rip my shirt,
you rip my shirt, and they pay that off because
at the end of the movie, when the vengeance is
done and we have that flashback to Mandy and Red's
first meeting, he's wearing that shirt. There is an emotional
connection he has to that shirt. He's not just yelling

(37:25):
about it to be Nick caging up the place like.

Speaker 4 (37:27):
This what's a perfect double feature to go? I got
two in my head, but I want to ask you
what are what are what is a perfect double feature
to go with this movie?

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Oh man, that's a good question. Something visually on the
level as this. You know, you could do like a
this would be weird, but maybe like a blue ruin
and a color out of space. You get the You
get the kind of low key revenge movie, but then
you also get the crazy color palette and the crazy
Nicholas Cage.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
I was my two that go with this movie would
be either Corlay Far's Revenge or the first John Wick
Oh sure, absolutelyutely Death Sentence Games Wants Death Sentence. That
would be another one, because that's an fat movie that
really does tackle It's a revenge movie, but it also

(38:15):
sits down and thinks about, like, you know, what will
happen if you get the revenge you want? Will it
satisfy you? Will it make your life better? Will it
help you heal? And the best revenge movies do kind
of talk about that. This is much more visceral but
a lot of good, you know, like the best revenge
movies kind of talk about that.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
A bit after these messages we'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
You've heard the songs, you've thrilled to his performances. Now
get up and dance with Berry Maniloe, Verry Menelone and
it's electrifying motion picture debut. Music and passion are always
in fashion at the Copa Cabana.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
And we're talking about this October, which is part of
Halloween Spirit. I have you the horror expert on here,
and I feel like we've talked a lot about this
movie as a revenge sort of action movie. Don't get
it twisted. This is absolutely a fantasy horror film.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Oh it is. It's it's like the best films. It's
six genres in one career. You know, it's like we
we Panos does not care about defining it by one genre,
nor should we. It's an action revenge film. It's a
dark nightmare, it's a horror film. It's you know, it's
it's seven different things in one and that's to me

(39:32):
that that's what I love about genre.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Film, and that's what I love about Nick Nicholas Cage
movies is they can turn on a dime like that.
But this one, especially like between the gruesome way that
Mandy meets her end and the fact that he has
to watch it, which is so horrific, And the fucking
kills in this movie. Like, he's not Charles Bronson in
this he is absolutely a vengeful wraith of an angry god.

Speaker 6 (39:55):
Like.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Yeah, it becomes almost a force of nature exactly.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
I have them ranked number five, running the Black Skull
member over with his car so hard it actually flips.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
Oh you know what else would be a perfect double
feature for this, We mentioned it already, Pig Pig.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yes, you would watch this.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
First, and then in Pig you're constantly waiting for the
revenge to take effect and when you realize it's not
gonna happen in that way, it's so satisfying.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Dude, here's what you do. You want to make an
absolutely incredible Nicholas Cage triple feature. Start with Drive Angry,
then watch this, then finish with Pig. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I would. That's a triple feature. And then and my
number four kill is the they cuts off the flaming
head of the last Black Skull member and then he
lights a cigarette off of its smoldering corpse.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yep, yep. That's great because it just gives you typical
Cage attitude. What's your number three?

Speaker 1 (40:46):
During the chainsaw duel in this movie? Not since Leatherface
versus Dennis Hopper have we seen whirley blade showdowns this
epic he he you know what, Nicholas Cage goes Johnny Cage.
He gets a little ghostwriter chain action, whips it around
the dude's neck and pulls him belly down onto a
chainsaw that's still running on the ground and just drags

(41:08):
him across it.

Speaker 4 (41:09):
It's beautiful in a gruesome horror movie way. What's the
number two force.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Feeding brother Swan the bladed butt of the battle axe. Yes,
that is.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
It's rough, But I mean, like you know, once you
once you sign on for this movie, that's the stuff
you're gonna get. And what's your number one kill in
this in Mandy.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
The absolutely orgasmic squishing of Jeremiah's skull. Yeah, so fucking good.
I mean.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
And it's because it's not just that he's getting revenge
for a beautiful woman he loved desperately. It's he's ridding
the world of real evil. Yes, that's the impression you get,
is that he's doing something righteous.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
And I just I feel like the end of the movie,
like the beautiful shots of the church burning, and then
that shot of him in the car that has been
has become the meme Hall of Fame. It's in the
meme Hall of Fame for sure. Oh yeah, that that
gift is in the meme Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (42:05):
And comes I mean him in the tidy whiteis is
also a meme.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
And that's arguably not even the best nick Cage looking
crazy writing in a car gift that exists now because
the one.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
That cheddar Goblin has kind of taken on a life
of its own.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
The cheddar Goblin, you know, which.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
Is just the weird car. Explain to explain to me
what the cheddar Goblin is in your eyes?

Speaker 1 (42:24):
What is it? It's just a weird way to set this
in a lived in world. So there are commercials for
products that exist within this world. So this macaroni and
cheese commercial has a spokes character that's just this green
little monster that vomits up macaroni and cheese onto children.
So again sort of the the thing they always talk
about in religious movies, where you have the sacred in
the profane. The sacred is a child enjoying its favorite meal.

(42:46):
The profane is that a monster is vomiting it up
onto that child.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
Here is another question, isn't the he could he sees
that commercial after he's already been drugged. Correct, Yes, so
to me, it could be just a normal Craft Macaroni
and cheese commercial. But through his eyes, that's what it
looks like because he's tripping on nasty, hard drugs.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
That's true. After he does the Joel silver sized line
of coke and then he takes one TC taste of
whatever was in that jar and his face gets permanently melted. Incredible,
absolutely incredible. This whole movie is like, and I feel
like that's another thing. This movie feels like a drug binge.
So you could also if you wanted to pair this
with something like fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
It also feels like and like a track. When it's over,
you feel like you've been like with him through this track.
You feel like, you know, it's not just two hours
where oh it's over, let's watch something else, or let's
make some food. No, it feels like you've been on
a twisted journey with him.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Oh yeah, you've been dragged by a bumper through ten
miles of bad road.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, yep.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
So feels like a like a journey. I you know,
I wish, I wish Panos made ten more films, not
exactly but similar absolutely.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
And before we turn this over to the past, I
just want to go ahead and throw out a junk
food pairing. It's Cheddar Goblin, probably the same junk food pairing.
I don't think the minisodes had junk food pairings. So
I'm just gonna state this was the easiest one of
all time. It's one of the most iconic things to
come out of this movie. It's the commercial within the movie,
directed by Adult Swim mainstay Casper Kelly. When the movie

(44:19):
was released, people latched onto this little fictional green spokes
character so much that you can now buy T shirts
Halloween masks like it's become coveted merchandise.

Speaker 4 (44:29):
Casper Kelly went on to direct the cult favorite Too
Many Cooks Parody, and he also did I Believe a
short in the newest VHS.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Movie There You Go. And if you can acquire a
promotional box of Cheddar Goblin, which was released by a
company called Vane to coincide with the release of this film,
all the better. It'll cost you about ten bucks of
bocks on eBay. But if not, draw a little gnarly
monster on a box of Kraft mac and cheese, cook
it up and serve it from the open mouth of
the ugliest puppet you can get your hands on or

(45:00):
it on your hand beautiful.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
My junk food pairing would be three shots of bourbon.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Three shots of bourbon.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Just yeah, get.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
Get like not so drunk, you can't pay attention, but
get a little drunk.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
I am so happy we got to talk about Mandy
as part of Odstober, as part of Halloween spirit, and
as part of this weird tradition now Scott where you're
only allowed to come on this show to talk about
movies from twenty eighteen, because you and I just did
Overlord as part of Halloween's Good Year, Goode good Year.
It's an excellent year.

Speaker 4 (45:29):
Right, and you will never hear this movie mentioned on
my podcast because anybody who would call this movie hated
or overheted is insane. But do check out my podcast overheted.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
All right, we're gonna turn you over to the past. Now.
This twenty eighteen minisod released from the vaults from the
depths below the Earth, and you're about to hear the
echoe sounds because we were recording this back in the
day in the concoffinous caverns of Cargill's rec room. So
enjoy that, and remember the psychotic drowns where the mystics went.
And I'm swimming in a sea of ecdo cooler, you

(46:04):
know what, I think I might be the psychotic.

Speaker 7 (46:23):
Under the Crimson primordial sky. The wretched Warlock reached into
the dark embrace, his fist closed around the serpents side
stream and turn.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Oh madden me, well you came and Nicholas Cage killed
every one.

Speaker 6 (46:47):
A Mandy, you're a fine, you're refined, what a good
wife you would be.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
But you were killed.

Speaker 4 (46:57):
To a tree.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
There it is, that's the line. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
It's been a while since we've done an ala mode,
and I could not be more excited that this is
the reason that the ala mode is back.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Baby, I told you we had to do this as
an alomodey. I was like, oh my god, be fair.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
You say a lot of things, and you were very
right about duff Man says a lot of things.

Speaker 8 (47:18):
Cargiolis tusting in the direction of the problem.

Speaker 6 (47:22):
Yes, but yeah, no, this is this is, of course
a crazy fucking movie, which I'm glad we're doing this
as an alo mode because I have a feeling because
what we what we have not talked about yet is
the fact that we're probably going to do another random
month because we've been doing so much theme stuff for
like six months now that we kind of were just

(47:43):
wanted to do a bunch of randos, and I think
Beyond the Black Rainbow might need to be on that list.
Oh absolutely, because Uh, for those of you that aren't
familiar with Panos Cosmotose, there are two reasons you should
be familiar with him.

Speaker 8 (47:58):
Number the first.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Number the first.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
He is the son of one of Brian's favorite directors
of all time.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
George pa Cosmotos, who who directed movies like Oh I
don't know, Tombstone and Cobra Brah.

Speaker 8 (48:09):
Give me a break.

Speaker 6 (48:11):
He's a guy that's giving you more boners in your
life than than your wife.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
I mean, this is let's let's be honest here.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Okay, I'm gonna I'm just gonna skate right past out
for a number of reasons, Star girl, Let's just say
impetusy impetasy is the disease and George because mottos is
the cure.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Here we go, There we go.

Speaker 6 (48:31):
So and the second thing is that he makes really bizarre,
wack a do fucking movies that I'm convinced is part
of a trilogy.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (48:42):
No.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
The first movie that he made, Beyond the Black Rainbow,
I remember seeing it and being blown away by just
the visuals the nightmarriage. It reminded me very much of
when you watch like a lesser known Argento film and
you're just blown away by how it feels like you're
walking through a nightmare.

Speaker 6 (48:59):
And it's it's as if Urgento made a science fiction
film directed by Kubrick, Like that's what Beyond the Black
Rainbow is. So Mandy is the slasher film, revenge film
version of that.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
You're a special one, Mandy, I too, am a special one.
Let us be so very special together.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
I love to.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
See costly darkness.

Speaker 9 (49:49):
Quote from within strange.

Speaker 6 (50:02):
Both movies, by the way, open with nineteen eighty three. Yeah,
they're both set in nineteen eighty three.

Speaker 8 (50:08):
They both it's going to be the trilogy.

Speaker 6 (50:09):
They both, yeah, it's gonna be the nineteen eighty three trilogy.
And they both take place in nineteen eighty three, but
they both take place in alternate universe nineteen eighty three.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Sure, and the first one is kind.

Speaker 6 (50:21):
Of like what the seventies thought the eighties would be,
sci fi wise, and this is kind of what movies
thought the nineteen eighty three was in terms of like
horror films.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
It's similar to what we've talked about the style of
music Outrun, where it's not actually music from the eighties,
it's music from the video games of the eighties and
what the eighties feels.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Like it's inspired by.

Speaker 6 (50:53):
It is an alt it is what we kind of
wish the eighties looked like and felt like. Yeah, and
this is a big, very very simple tale told in
a very complicated way.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Uh. And it is just bug.

Speaker 8 (51:07):
Fuck nuts in the best possible.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Way, I mean, very simply.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Put Nicholas Cage is a lumberjack.

Speaker 8 (51:15):
And which, by the way, already on board, already on
already on Lumberjack.

Speaker 6 (51:19):
Nicholas Cage is hanging out in a nice little cabin
with his wife and she gets kidnapped by cultists, uh,
to join their cult. And then Nicholas Cage goes to
get revenge.

Speaker 8 (51:33):
And it's it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Everything about this movie is so this movie is the
eighties I want to live in because I think you
hit it on the head and I had this thought
while watching it. It feels like it takes place on
Planet nineteen eighty three, where literally everything from the pole
to pole of that planet is is the inside of

(51:54):
a fantasy novel written, you know, by Gary Gygax. Like
it's just it's fucking nuts in the best way possible.
And it also feels like this movie is the most
metal thing I think I've ever seen. We like to
say things like that's metal as fuck, this movie is metal.
I think we're gonna have to change that expression to
when things are metal, it's mandy as fuck, because this

(52:17):
might be the most heavy metal movie I've ever seen,
because it feels like they stepped through a painted van
that your uncle you don't talk to had throughout all
of the eighties, and that's where the movie takes place,
is inside the painting on the side of that van.
It's very much like, you know, Ralph Bakshi took a
lot of peyote and watched our gento movies.

Speaker 6 (52:39):
Yeah, and drugs are a theme that will come up
in almost every review of this movie because it's a
movie that very much, and both of his movies are
like this. They very much feel like you are watching
them in an altered state of consciousness.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
They are supposed to feel like they're an altered state
of consciousness.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
What I'm so impressed by with Panos is how he
is able to take that and make it essential to
the story and not just a visual gimmick.

Speaker 6 (53:06):
Yes, and that's what's so fascinating by about him as
a filmmaker is he's telling these really crazy fucking stories
that nobody, nobody else would tell like this. It is
such unique voice, It is such an inaccessible voice. He
is only making movies for us, like this movie. I

(53:26):
saw this at a draft house and the row of
bros sitting in front of me after the bro the broro,
the broro got up and one of the guys just
said thanks Sean, great choice this month. And I was
just like sitting there going It's like, yeah, of course
the bros didn't fucking get it.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
And I feel like I feel like like there was
one dude in that bro.

Speaker 6 (53:48):
Group that was probably sitting there going, I don't know, gos,
I kind of fucking liked it. That was There's because
there's always one cool guy in every bro group who's
who just kind of keeps his mouth shut and keeps
his head down. But that oh, was really really frustrated
by this movie, whereas me and all my friends who
went with me, we all fucking dug the shit out

(54:08):
of it and couldn't stop talking about it. I had
actually bought this day and date, and then it was
produced by Spectrovision, who are good friends of mine. Daniel,
No Elijah would I'm actually working on some stuff with them,
for you know, for transparency's sake.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
We're working on a project. But I've known these guys.

Speaker 6 (54:29):
I've known Daniel for like eighteen years, and of course
anybody that goes to Fantastic Fester or went to but
Namathon has known.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Elijah for a decade.

Speaker 6 (54:39):
And when I was really excited, I bought it and
I'm like, I can't wait to watch it guys, and
Daniel was just like, oh no, dude, see it in
a theater.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
The first time, I just watched it in a theater,
and I was like, all right, all right, So I
waited and I went to see it in a theater.

Speaker 6 (54:53):
When the timing shaped up, we watched it and then
We came home and immediately put it on my projector
and just added onto the background as we were kind
of dice it watching it a second time that night.
Because that's just the type of film it fucking is.
You're gonna wanna dig deep into it. It is just
a fascinating, weird dissection that it wears all of its

(55:13):
influences on its sleeve.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Like you can.

Speaker 6 (55:16):
See the hell Razor inspiration, you could see the biker
movie inspiration.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Oh yeah, straight up fucking centomites show up at one point,
and yeah, you know what's fascinating about what you just
said is it's a tale.

Speaker 8 (55:26):
Of two screenings because you got the BRORO.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
I got the most metal crowd I've ever seen at
a draft house.

Speaker 8 (55:34):
I mean, I'm talking these guys.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
One guy walked in, I shit, you not looked exactly
like Mark Gregory from nineteen ninety Bronxquires, looked exactly like Crash.

Speaker 8 (55:44):
I was freaking the fuck out. I was like, oh
my god, it's trash, Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
And I'm like because I'm by myself, like I got
a night off, and I'm like, I got my movie,
my victory birthday ticket.

Speaker 8 (55:54):
You know, I get to see whatever I want for free.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
It was at the Mueller Draft House, which I don't
normally go to, but it was one of the few
that was showing it, and I am in a row
and like, so those guys are at the end with
their metal friends. The guys directly next to me are
on something super strong and they are wearing They're wearing
the denim vest with all the patches on it, like
bracelets with spikes on him. The guy has thrown up

(56:18):
devil horns at the screen at pretty much everything that's happening.
Like I was surrounded by the cast of The Road Warrior.
It was nuts and the best possible way to see
this fucking movie.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
I was.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
I was disappointed to see those guys frustrated at the end,
but I was glad to see it with the people
that I did. But so, this was written by Aaron
stewart On who's a director and editor who's been you know,
popping or bouncing around for a long time.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
And the Spectrovision picked it up.

Speaker 6 (56:48):
Pon Us came in and did a rewrite on it,
and they made the craziest.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Fucking film out of it. Like this movie is. This
movie's just weird in all the right ways.

Speaker 6 (56:58):
It's it's very very hard to nail down, except unless
you've seen Beyond the Black Rainbow. Have you seen Beyond
the Black Rainbow? Well, imagine the heavy metal revenge version
of that, because it feels exactly like that. What he
does in terms of putting music in this and the
visuals and just the feel of it, you feel like

(57:20):
you were watching an altered.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
State of consciousness.

Speaker 6 (57:22):
We should also mention the music, which is by Johann Johansen.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Is that his name? I believe, who passed away earlier
this year. This is his last film talking.

Speaker 8 (57:32):
About going out on a fucking high note.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Oh dude, holy shit.

Speaker 6 (57:36):
And this movie is breaking the fucking model because this
was one of those things that has caused people to
re evaluate how this is done. Because this was a
day and date release, so you could buy it and
rent it the day it came out, or you could
go see it in a select number of theaters. Those
theaters started selling out instantly. They did a one night

(57:58):
only engagement in a bunch of theaters Thursday before it
came out. Those all sold out. Then places like the
Draft House started selling out. The Arc Lights started getting
requests for it, so they said, all right, fine, we'll
do two late night shows on Saturday. Those immediately sold out,
and they said, holy shit, we need to be showing
this movie. And with on very few screens, with no

(58:21):
no fucking p and a none. It made over a
million dollars. And this is with day and date. This
is something that has never happened before. So people could
watch it at home and instead they were in masks
going out to see this movie. It was a cult
film that would not die. There are still theaters playing
it as we're talking about it right now, and they

(58:42):
just announced that it's going to be on Shutter and
Shutters going to have it as a Shutter exclusive. So
I'm assuming the rental possibility may go away and it
might just be the purchase VOD version. I'm not certain
about that, but then you're gonna be able to watch
it on Shutter. This movie is so fucking crackers.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
And just to go back for a second to the score,
Johanna Hanson was the go to composer for Dennis Villaneuve,
which is why he did movies like Sikario and Arrival
and also Prisoners. Yeah, so I mean he's just a
guy that It's one of those situations where a director
found a composer they really liked and then yeah, the

(59:22):
music in this is I man, it's it's kind of
hacked to say this, but it's very It will it
will transport you, like the minute that this very cynthy
score kind of rises up with all of the other
evil that's happening on the screen. It fucking surrounds you this.
I cannot imagine not seeing this in the theater like

(59:45):
it was. It was like this blanket that was like
surrounding me, except that the blanket had a lot of
sharp nails and broken glass in it, and I was
very afraid of it. But at the same time, I
was like, yes, let's let's wrap ourselves up in this
amazing score.

Speaker 6 (59:59):
And you know, we have not mentioned yet just how
fucking bonkers Nicholas Cage is in this movie.

Speaker 8 (01:00:05):
I have said this for years.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Nicholas Cage is always going to be best in roles
where he is allowed to be insane, because he is insane.
When you try to shoehorn Nicholas Cage into roles of
like regular joes, that's when it doesn't work. When you
try to put him in like The Family Man, or
I saw a movie recently called Between Two Worlds where

(01:00:28):
he was just this kind of redneck truck driver and.

Speaker 8 (01:00:31):
It just did not fucking work.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
But if you're gonna really let him off the leash,
if you're going to uncage him, that's when you get
the best stuff from Nicholas Cage. And this is another
prime I'm serious, It is a fact. You uncage the
cage and you get the best cage. It's it's and
he's fucking amazing in this and that's we touched on
it before, but I want to say this again. The

(01:00:53):
drug stuff is so fucking important to understanding to getting
on board with this movie from the get go, because
you're gonna see things that immediately you're gonna go, what
the fuck kind of world?

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
That's why is it?

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
That's so fantastical to be in the real world, And
then you remember everybody's on fucking drugs.

Speaker 8 (01:01:11):
And it starts to make sense all of a sudden.

Speaker 6 (01:01:15):
Yeah, yeah, and you start getting the fantasy elements of
this movie and it's.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Like, what the fuck and it gets it just there's
no it is it is.

Speaker 6 (01:01:25):
We're stammering for this because it is of itself so inexplicable,
Like it is just a movie that you can describe
the plot of the movie in less than two sentences, Uh,
but you cannot convey the true feeling of the movie
or why the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Is so great. It is just genius.

Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
It is just it's like watching this movie, I'm like,
I really really want to write a panos cosmotose film.
And then I'm like, I bet that script is forty
forty five pages tops.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
Yeah, average script is ninety five to one hundred and
twenty pages. This is like forty forty five pages because
there's not a lot of dialogue, and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Twenty pages is just describing the weapon that Nicholas Cage
forges for himself in this movie, because it looks like
it looks like like the lead the lead guitarist from
Anthrax made a new guitar that could also kill people.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Yeah, and then and then Bill Duke shows up. Oh,
Bill Duke.

Speaker 6 (01:02:26):
By the way, I tweeted about my love for Mandy,
and then Bill Duke retweeted it and popped in and
said thanks for all the kind words blessings. So I
got a random blessing by Bill Duke, who just drove
by on Twitter to go blessings.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
No one was talking about the fact that Bill Duke
was in this, so I saw him a lot on
Twitter retweeting things about Mandy and talking about Mandy. I'm like,
Bill Duke really likes Mandy. No, no, no, no, Bill Duke
is in motherfucking Mandy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
And he one scene and he's fucking great.

Speaker 8 (01:02:54):
Oh my god, he's so so fucking good.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
I also want to talk about the actors who actually
plays the titular character, uh, Andrea Riseborough.

Speaker 8 (01:03:03):
I believe it's how your pronounce her name. Fucking incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Yes, Like, just.

Speaker 6 (01:03:10):
Nobody phones this movie in. That's the thing about this
movie is this movie is so cranked to eleven. Like
so Nicholas Cage feels right at home because he's like, wait,
everything's cranked to eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Fuck ye dude.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
For the first act of the movie, he's the most
normal thing about this movie, and that is fucking bizarre,
I know.

Speaker 6 (01:03:28):
And then then he slowly ramps up into Nicholas. He
goes from a three Nicholas cage to a five Nicholas
Cage to a nine Nicholas Cage.

Speaker 8 (01:03:37):
Nicholas Cage goes to eleven and.

Speaker 6 (01:03:38):
This Nicholas Cage goes to eleven and when he goes
to eleven, oh my god, that final that the final
sequence of him driving and having the hallucination.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Man is like, it's all man, yeah, it's this movie's
just something old Mandy?

Speaker 8 (01:03:53):
Is that amazing?

Speaker 6 (01:03:54):
This is what the exactly the type of film junk
food Cinema was design to talk about. Twenty years from now.
God help us if we're still doing this podcast or
any podcast like us will be doing Mandy and being like,
you need to this is why. If you know, if
this is that movie that everybody said, oh have you

(01:04:16):
seen Mandy, and then you lie about it and go.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Of course I have everybody showing marrin ru this.

Speaker 6 (01:04:20):
Is the movie you really need to fucking you need
to have Mandy in your life, whether you love it
or whether you hate it. This is This is seminal filmmaking.
This is one of those touchstones of twenty eighteen that
is going to define what this era is. I think
I think Panos is gonna inspire a bunch of shitty filmmaking.

(01:04:43):
I think there's gonna be a lot of imitators who
do not get the magic of him, and we'll we'll
have to suffer through some really bad knockoffs like we
did with Tarantino, where all of a sudden, everybody wanted
to write a Tarantino movie, but only Tarantino could write
a Tarantino movie, or.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
As I'm experiencing right now in October, the Kevin Williamson
era of the neo slasher Oh.

Speaker 6 (01:05:01):
My God, where everybody tried to write a meta a
meta slasher film like Kevin Williamson.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Well even when Kevin Williamson tried to recreate it, and
they would just literally copy and paste music cues.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
From Scream You mean Scream two.

Speaker 8 (01:05:14):
I mean a lot of things, Kevin Willis.

Speaker 6 (01:05:15):
I'm just I'm just pointing out that that you have
several different levels of drunk, and one of them is
I'm watching Scream too drunk.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
That is that is very drunk.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
That's that's drunk, is a very see that's me watching
thirty one drunk. That's that level. Like I pop on
Rob Zombie's thirty one when I'm that drunk.

Speaker 6 (01:05:31):
Because that movie's really really fun after too much whiskey,
because that movie makes a lot more sense. It's hey,
it's a low budget running man, I fucking love it.
But instead of Richard Dawson, we you know, we get
Malcolm McDowell.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
That's amazing.

Speaker 6 (01:05:47):
Yeah so uh but yeah, No, Manby is a film,
by the way, watch it straight the first time you
see it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
I was just gonna say that you when you were
talking about the whiskey thing, like, this is a movie
that you can watch completely sober, which I was, and
betray transported. I can't even imagine what it's going to
be like revisiting this movie stoned and then revisiting this
movie drunk.

Speaker 6 (01:06:06):
Yeah, that's they're gonna be very very different worlds. Although
Stoned might actually make a hell of a lot more sense.
It might actually feel like it's moving at normal pace, right,
But yeah, it is. It is a hell of a thing.
I love the shit out of this movie. It's definitely
going to go down on my list of ten most
important films of the year, probably gonna go down on

(01:06:28):
my list of ten favorites.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
It's just how much I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
It's my favorite movie that I've seen this year. And
there are a couple that I still need to see
for sure, Like I still haven't seen Sorry to Bother
You and a couple of others.

Speaker 6 (01:06:39):
I need you to I desperately need you to see
Heavy Trip. It played for only a week here in
town and then was gone, and I was so busy
I missed it. That's a movie you need to see
because you're going to love the shit out of that
one too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
But this, I mean, right now, my top three movies
of the year are this, Black Panther, and The Night
Comes for Us. So it's like, that's where I'm at
right now, and Mandy is going to fuck your shit up.

Speaker 8 (01:07:03):
I don't know how else to tell you.

Speaker 6 (01:07:04):
I can't believe what a coup it is for Shutter
to get this. Yes, like this must have been one
of those things that everyone was asleep on when they
showed it and had no idea because had Netflix scored this?

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Oh my god, this was Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
This was drafting and I'm probably gonna lose a lot
of you. This was drafting Patrick Mahomes in the fourteenth
round of your fantasy football draft this year. And the
guy's throwing like four to six touchdowns every game.

Speaker 8 (01:07:30):
It's insane. He's a rookie and it's like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
A baseball player, yes, soccer.

Speaker 8 (01:07:34):
Yes, he's throwing touchdowns in soccer.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Okay, yeah, good football.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
So yeah, I cannot and you mentioned people like if
we're still doing this podcast twenty years from now. The
great thing about the idea of Mandy being a full
junk food cinema episode, the junk food bearing is built
right into it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
It really fuck it is. And what is that junk
food bear?

Speaker 8 (01:07:53):
Not shedter Goblin?

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
God, I love Cheddar.

Speaker 8 (01:08:12):
That's the part where I thought I had fallen asleep.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
Cheddar Goblin.

Speaker 6 (01:08:14):
Cheddar Goblin is just it's absurd and I love that
that's the meme that came out of that movie. And uh,
it is just it is just a piece of absurdity,
Like what the fuck is it doing here? And then
it's like, of course it's here, And I love that
they're selling Cheddar Goblin gear now, uh yeah, well everybody
because people made bootleg. There was no cheddar Goblin stuff,
so people were making bootleg cheddar Goblin stuff, so like

(01:08:36):
spectro Vision got right on it. They're like, we really
need to uh make some Cheddar Goblin stuff. But yeah,
this is this is a fascinating fucking movie. It is
a great time. It is It is the movie you
guys need to be watching for Halloween like it is.
It is your Halloween movie this year, and and it
it really does. Like I mentioned earlier, it wears its

(01:08:57):
influences on its sleeve. You're gonna you're gonna the the
you know, the in jokes to Night marn elm Street
and Friday the Thirteenth and hell Raiser and all this
stuff of that era that it's ripping on, and uh,
you're just gonna You're just gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
Dig the fuck out of it. It is. It is
a big heapen bowl of cinema mac and cheese and
oh my god, you're gonna fucking love it.

Speaker 8 (01:09:21):
A big bull of cheddar goblin. Yeah, I mean, I
think it's a feast.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
Love cheddar Goblin.

Speaker 8 (01:09:34):
This movie is mandy as fuck. And uh yeah, I
mean I think feast all around. Oh, I don't think
he's any question.

Speaker 6 (01:09:40):
Feast plus like it is not just a feast. It
is a mandatory feast. It is it is you have
no choice but to eat this like this is.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Okay, it's a feast in the way that John what's
his name, John Doe makes the fat guy eat in
seven just keep gorging on it until you explode.

Speaker 6 (01:10:00):
It's you know, it's it's for for this crowd, for
you guys, for the type of people who who who
want so much junk food cinema that you're willing to
throw down a couple extra bucks every month to get
some extra content. Yes, maniacs, this is this is the
movie that you guys are not going to be able
to get around not talking about like it is just
a movie that is part of the cinema landscape now

(01:10:23):
and uh, one of you, We're lucky if one or
two of these come along a year and this is
that one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
So buckle up. Buckle up, my friends. This is this
is the fucking movie and the show.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Mark is not kidding when he talks about it being
a Halloween movie. This movie is violent as all get
out and it's so incredible to Uh, I want to
go watch.

Speaker 6 (01:10:43):
It again, cooked out, violent, Nicholas case, dude, I can
pop it on right now. I've got it like you
literally got it right here on my computer. I bought
it through Amazon. We want you right now. So why
don't we turn this off and watch Mandy again.

Speaker 8 (01:10:55):
Let's do it.

Speaker 9 (01:11:00):
Will not take it?

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
I said your way a man? Will you kiss me
and stop me from shaking and I need you today,
Mad